Publication Date:
2013-11-22
Description:
Mean telomere length (TL) in blood cells is heritable and has been reported to be associated with risks of several diseases, including cancer. We conducted a meta-analysis of three GWAS for TL (total n =2240) and selected 1629 variants for replication via the "iCOGS" custom genotyping array. All ~200 000 iCOGS variants were analysed with TL, and those displaying associations in healthy controls ( n = 15 065) were further tested in breast cancer cases ( n = 11 024). We found a novel TL association ( P trend 〈 4 x 10 –10 ) at 3p14.4 close to PXK and evidence ( P trend 〈 7 x 10 –7 ) for TL loci at 6p22.1 ( ZNF311 ) and 20q11.2 ( BCL2L1 ). We additionally confirmed ( P trend 〈 5 x 10 –14 ) the previously reported loci at 3q26.2 ( TERC ), 5p15.3 ( TERT ) and 10q24.3 ( OBFC1 ) and found supportive evidence ( P trend 〈 5 x 10 –4 ) for the published loci at 2p16.2 ( ACYP2 ), 4q32.2 ( NAF1 ) and 20q13.3 ( RTEL1 ). SNPs tagging these loci explain TL differences of up to 731 bp (corresponding to 18% of total TL in healthy individuals), however, they display little direct evidence for association with breast, ovarian or prostate cancer risks.
Print ISSN:
0964-6906
Electronic ISSN:
1460-2083
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
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